


beautiful minds

by wonderlondh



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One Direction, ot5 - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Chaptered, M/M, Multi, OT5, Other, WIP, insane, larry - Freeform, larry stylinson - Freeform, larryfic, lourry, mental insitution, one direction - Freeform, sick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:41:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderlondh/pseuds/wonderlondh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry might’ve killed a lot of people, but there’s more to it. Louis wants to keep it simple, but gets too invested. Niall lost his mind some time ago, but the beds are nice. Liam has a lot to prove, but not much left to give. Zayn has a lot of people looking up to him, but a lot of people want him dead.</p><p>St. Claire’s mental institution is what they all have in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. guilty

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progess. Please leave your feed back and advice to help me make the best of this!

“Will the judge please read the verdict?”

The tension in the courtroom is intense. The air feels heavy, like the oxygen has been soaked from it and Harry has to struggle to find something to fill up his lungs with. He’s chewing on his thumbnail to keep his hands from shaking. Under messy hair and long eye lashes he peeks up at the man sitting next to him in a newly pressed suit and a prominent pair of glasses framing his dark eyes – Liam Payne, lawyer of suspect Harry Styles. He turns to Harry and presses an assuring touch to the top of his back and forces a smile upon his lips. It matches the young man’s comb over and briefcase and looks too stiff to help Harry’s pounding heart slow down.

The old man at the top of the podium, wearing a silly old wig just for the sake of it all, coughs and the wide eyes of a room full of people are turned to him. Harry swallows hard and begins chewing on the inside of his cheek as the judge takes a deep breath.

“In the murder case of five women, all innocent and defenseless at the time of the assaults, the defendant, Harry Styles, is hereby convicted for the murders. On grounds of his apparent insanity and mental illness at the time of, and in the time following, the committed crime, he is sentenced to life in mental institution with psychiatric treatment. Case closed.”

The heavy hammer hits the table with a deafening boom and Harry feels the sound waves echo through him along with the words that have just been read to him. On the chair next to him, Liam curls his hands into fists and mutters a long string of profanities under his breath. He looks over at Harry again, guilt clear in his eyes, and mouths “Sorry”. With a swift movement he pushes out the chair and stands from his seat. Harry carefully follows his lead and as he straightens out his back he feels two pairs of large hands grasp around his arms to keep him still.

“Take him out,” a deep voice demands and the two policemen tug at Harry to get him to move. He is led out of the courtroom with his head hanging low in defeat. Yet, he can feel the burning eyes in the back of his neck as the doors shut behind him. Liam comes running out after him, gripping to his glasses to keep them from falling off his nose.

“Get your hands off him!” he calls out and approaches Harry with furrowed eyebrows. “Are you alright, Harry?” he asks when he gets closer and glowers at the police officers surrounding them. Before Harry has a chance to even think of a response, Liam turns around again. “Hey!” he shouts at someone Harry can’t see, too exhausted to try to lift his head. “Do you think we could get a moment here?”

A tall man with broad shoulder get closer and Harry only catches a glimpse of him under his fringe, but he recognizes the voice as one of the police men who was standing behind him during the trial. “Go ahead.”

Having spent hours on end alone in a small office smelling of coffee and detergent, Harry knows Liam well enough by now to know the pouting face and narrowed eyes he’s pulling off as he responds without even seeing it. “In private, I mean.”

The police man sighs deeply and then turns around. “You!” he shouts, pointing at a younger guy in suit. “Get these two a room, alright?”

Liam straightens out his back and coughs to get the attention again.

“You got 10 minutes”, the police man says, turning back to him, “then we need to get him out of here.”

“Thank you”, Liam says and forces a smile before turning to Harry with his fingertips pressed to his temples. “I- You – We just need to go over a few thing, okay Harry?”

Harry nods carefully, but can’t find the strength to speak. He watches silently as a police man cuffs his thin wrists together and then grabs him roughly by the neck to lead him off with Liam. As they walk down the corridor women in high heels and men in suits pass by and they all stop as they see Harry. They stop dead in their tracks and stare as he passes by them. Harry can feel their disgusted looks digging into his back. He can imagine what goes through their heads at that very moment and it’s not pretty things. Because to them he is no one but a cruel serial killer, a young man with an intense lust for young women – girls even – and a need to kill. He’s the crazy guy on the front of the news paper they’re all glad they’ve finally caught after months of terror – he’s insane and what awaits him is a life he doesn’t even want to begin to imagine.

“This way,” the officer says and directs them into a small room with nothing but a desk and two chairs on either side of it. “Ten minutes”, he warns again and then walks out of the room with a hand pressed to his holster as he closes the door behind him.

“Alright, Harry, sit down”, Liam immediately says and hints towards one of the chairs. He places his brief case on top of the desk and clicks it open.

“What are they going to do to me, Liam?” Harry asks as he sits down and leans across the desk with his cuffed hands in front of him. His voice is weak and shaken, on the verge of breaking, and he feels the tears threatening to spill over his waterline.

“Look, Harry”, Liam says and takes a seat, “I know that you’re scared and that this a lot to take in but-“

“A lot to take in?!” Harry interrupts through clenched teeth. “I’ve just been convicted for five murders that I didn’t commit and they’re sending me to a mental institution for the rest of my life. Yeah, you’re right, that is a lot to fucking take in!”

Harry falls back in his chair and presses his hand to his face. The metal from the hand cuffs rub clod against his cheek – another reminder of his situation.

Liam sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, I know”, he says and then pauses for a long while, “I know that this was not what we expected, but – but it’s not over yet, Harry. We just have to… we have to…” he waves his hands around as if he’s just looking for the right words, but to Harry it’s clear that he doesn’t have a clue of what to do.

“Nothing”, Harry finishes the sentence for him. “We don’t have to do anything. We _can’t_ do anything, and you know it just as well as I do.”

Liam shakes his head, refusing to accept the facts. “No. No, they didn’t have a lot of evidence, they didn’t even have witnesses, they just went with their beliefs, but if we can just get something to prove you did not do this we-“

“Like what?” Harry shoots back. “We’ve already tried that, but nobody knows anything and I can’t even remember the night when they…” he trails off and lets his hands fall to his lap. “It’s over, Liam, it really is. I’m thankful for all you’ve done for me, but it’s over, we lost. I lost.”

The room falls silent because they both know that Harry is speaking the truth. Liam clutches his eyes shut and sighs heavily. “I’m going to find a way to get you out of there, Harry”, he breathes. ”I just need to _think_. There has to be something we’ve missed, something they’ve missed and I’m going to find out what that is. Then I’m going to prove to them that you’re innocent and get you out of there.”

Harry’s lips stretch into a quick smile of appreciation, but it never reaches his eyes. With reality heavily hovering above him he won’t even try to trick himself into believing something that isn’t true.

A few minutes later the door flies open again and the two police men from before stomp inside and yank Harry out of his seat. “Time to go”, one of them growls and Harry feels like a rag doll as they jerk him out of the room and down the corridor again. He feels like a he’s coming apart at the seams, like he might just fall apart right here and right now, but somehow his body resists. They throw him into the back of a truck and he stays face down with his cheek pressed to the wet floor. The dark surrounds him as they shut the door and Harry feels lonelier than he’s ever done before.

He feels like crying, or screaming, or fighting, but mostly, he just feels like dying. 


	2. welcome home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> word count: 2297

“Welcome to St. Claire’s mental hospital, founded and built from scratch by Walter Mallet in the early 1950s. This is considered one of America’s greatest psychiatric asylums and is very well known across the country for its efficient treatment and therapy for our society’s mentally ill citizens.”

The man talking stands on the top of a spiral staircase with curious reporters looking up at him with wide eyes and notebooks filled with scribbles. The fine lines around his eyes crinkle as he forces a smile upon his lips despite how much he’d rather have one of his employees deal with the media attention. Around him the hallways have been cleared out and the doors shut in an attempt to keep the usual noise of people crying and moaning at bay.

The young man, with wet hair from his morning shower and tiny, sparkling drops of sweat across his forehead, wipes his hands on the back of his pants and takes a deep breath before continuing to tell the small assembly about the old building and its endless underground tunnels. “Mr. Mallet, also known as my grandfather,” he says and keeps his eyes on a young woman who frantically scribbles into her notebook, “was a successful brain surgeon and continued to perform operations on the patients here. He was able to cure hundreds of people from delirium and even amnesia. The methods he used have proved to work almost inexplicably, but have become the ground for many scientists across the world in their work with the human brain. To this day we continue to perform these procedures on our inmates to help them towards recovery from their awful illnesses.”

A middle aged man in the back with a young boy caring a camera by his side coughs loudly to interrupt. “Excuse me, Mr. Malik, but is it true what they say that you perform, as called, inhuman procedures here?”

The rest of the reporters suddenly flick up their gaze to the man before them and waits patiently with their pens hovering above the paper. The young man clears his throat and shifts on his heels. He purses his lips and lets his gaze zone out across the crowd through narrow eyes. “Define inhuman.”

“From what I’ve heard it’s everything from forced electrotherapy to lobotomy.” the older man says and lowers his notebook and cocks an eyebrow. “Is it true?”

Mr. Malik forces a smile and folds his hands in front of him. “Well, of course it’s not. The procedures executed here strictly follow the laws and restrictions of our county.” He pauses to bite his lip and then looks directly at the old reporter. “As for you, I suggest you stop believing in everything that you hear.”

The room falls silent as the reporters get lost in their own notes. At last a woman in the front flashes a smile and asks, “Is there any chance you could let us see these tunnels you were talking about before?”

Mr. Malik smiles as naturally as he can, exhales deeply and lets his shoulder drop an inch or two. “Of course. Right this way.” He says and starts walking through the group of people down the stairs.

The young woman Mr. Malik had noticed in the front before hurries up behind him as they walk down the main hall. She’s wearing high heels that echo in the unusually empty hallway and she has to pull her skirt up above her knees to be able to keep up with the man leading the way.

“Excuse me, director”, she begins as they turn a corner and Mr. Malik slows down slightly to be able to meet the young woman’s gaze as she talks. “About the… about the murderer they convicted just the other day…” she trails off as they walk into the evening room. The white concrete walls are cover in words and sketches that have been engraved into them by the patients for the past 20 years and the windows are covered by thick metal bars that send long shadows across the floor boards.

“We’re getting the walls fixed shortly”, Mr. Malik mumbles distantly and continues to walk. “What about the murderer?”

The woman hurries up next to the young man again as she clutches he bag tightly to her chest. “Director, I was just wondering if it’s true that he’s going to be treated here?” she whispers and Mr. Malik curves his lips into a crooked smile, a more natural one than the ones he’s been flashing all morning.

“Call me Zayn, please”, he stop and says before stretching out his hand toward the woman. She takes it carefully in hers significantly smaller one and shake it slightly.

“My name is Lorna”, she says and smiles faintly.

“Well then, Lorna”, Mr. Malik, Zayn, mumbles and peeks over his shoulder where the rest of the reporters are snapping pictures of the creaks in the ceiling and the old rocking chair and radio standing by the wall. He turns to watch them scribble into their notepads and wonders what sort of criticism he will have to stand up against in tomorrow’s morning paper. Lorna stands before him and let’s her gaze run up and down his body to take in every aspect of his seemingly flawless appearance.

He’s not very tall, but his wide chest makes up for it. Although he must be in his mid twenties he’s got a boyish looking face with soft features and a prominent jaw line, Lorna thinks and bites her lip. He’s wearing a grey suit, seemingly a bit out of place for the location, and has his hair comb over to the side, shiny in the sun peeking in through the window. As his eye flicker across the room his eyelashes seem brush against his cheekbones and Lorna, much like most other females that’s had an encounter with Zayn, finds herself wondering what those very eyelashes would feel like brushed against her own cheeks.

At last Zayn lowers his head and looks down at her with a mix between excitement and fear flashing by in his eyes. “Between you and me”, he whispers, “we should be expecting him this afternoon.”

*

A light knock on the door causes Zayn to look up from his papers on his desk. He lowers his pencil and brushes this fringe that has begun to give in to gravity out of his eyes. “What is it?” he shouts across the room, annoyance clear in his voice, as the door slowly creaks open. A man wearing scrubs and a nurse hat peeks inside and Zayn leans back in his chair with a questioning look on his face.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir” the man says carefully and Zayn taps his finger impatiently against the armrest, “but it’s about the new patient.”

“What about him?” Zayn mumbles and distantly begins to study his hands.

“Well, he’s on his way here, sir.”

Zayn immediately sits up straight again and lets his hand drop to the top of the desk, causing an echoing sound to jump between the naked walls. He stands from his seat and looks up at the man with observant eyes. “Well, let’s go then.”

He shuffles across the room and grabs his coat and an umbrella and walks past the nurse out the door.

“They’re dropping him off in the back, sir”, the nurse calls out after him as Zayn puts his coat on in one swift movement. He hurries down the hall and flies down the staircase. Outside the main entrance two guards are chatting with each other over a smoke and Zayn slams the window as he passes by. “Back to work, boys,” he yells and chuckles lowly as he watches them both drop their cigarettes and get back into position.

“Good evening, sir”, a young nurse greets as Zayn hurries past her.

“It is in fact a very lovely evening, Sophie”, Zayn tells her over his shoulder as he continues down the hall and smiles as the young girl cheeks promptly shifts into a deep pink color. He shakes his head to himself and rolls his eyes before he reaches a large barred door.

“Oh, good evening, sir”, the big guard seated in front of the door says and stands from his seat. “I didn’t realize you were coming out here tonight.”

Zayn smiles and waits patiently as the guard gets the door open.

“There you go, sir”, the big man tells Zayn and holds the door open. Zayn passes by, but stops on the other side to turn back to the guard.

“Do you mind me asking what the situation is?” the guard asks as he closes the door again, making sure it’s locked up.

Zayn takes a step toward the door again and looks up at the older man. He studies him from top to toe and the notices how his forehead is sparkling with sweat, even in the dim light, and the way he sticks his thumbs down under his belt as he stands up. Zayn plucks his lips and then says,

“I’m going to need you to be at your prime from now on. We are getting a new patient tonight and it is very important that we maintain a top security around him, is that understood?”

The guard nods quickly and frowns. “Of course, sir, I understand.”

“Good”, Zayn says sharply and pouts. “Well then, I should get going. You have a good night…” he leans in towards the bars and squints at the guard’s name tag. “…Mr. Clark. And if anyone asks, you don’t know anything about the patient.”

“But you never told me who the patient is, sir?” Mr. Clark insists and frowns.

Zayn smiles faintly and narrows his eyes. “Exactly.”

And with those words he turns around and sets off down the corridor at a quick pace. Mr. Clark stays behind the barred door and watches his dark figure disappear around a corner before he sighs and sits down again. “This place will drive me nuts”, he mumbles under his breath and peeks over his shoulder one last time.

*

The cold rain hits Zayn as he steps outside. He pops open his umbrella and squints into the dark. Apart from an old street lamp the hazy moon light is the only thing lighting up the dark alley. This side of the building is merely used for waste collecting and, on rare occasions like this, the sign-in of new patients.

“The car should be here any minute now, sir”, a police officer says as he steps out beside Zayn. He’s got a cigarette hanging between his lips and Zayn glowers at him.

“You know I do not condone with that”, Zayn mumbles and hints at the lit cigarette. “Not on my property.”

The police man hesitates for a second and then removes the butt from his lips and flicks it off into the dark. The two men both follow the tiny speck of light as it goes flying and then lands on the wet ground with a sizzling sound.

“I’ve been told that our patient is not in a very good condition at the moment”, Zayn mumbles into the dark, intending for the officer to provide him with more details.

The police man sighs and nods. “He’s refused to eat ever since they convicted him and they haven’t been able to get him to say a single word.”

In the distance, between the trees surrounding the lot, Zayn sees the front lights of a car approaching. He smiles as it gets closer and hands over the umbrella to the police man. With a content sigh he crosses his arms over his chest and sticks out his chin as the car pulls up and the driver jumps out and runs through the rain. He stops to look at Zayn for instruction and when the director nods, he unlocks the back of the trunk with a click.

Zayn takes a step out into the rain and watches with eyes like those of a child in a candy store as the door opens up. The light from the moon peeking out from under a thick layer of clouds creeps inside the back of the car, exposing a tall, lean figure on the floor. The man, who looks no older than to be called a boy, lifts his head with all the energy he’s got left in him and stares out into the rain. Under his greasy fringe, hollowed into their sockets, a pair of green eyes, which seem to have been drenched of life, flicker up and down the silhouette of the man standing before him. The young boy winces and defiantly pulls back as two officers get inside the car and grab him by his arms. His wrists are reddened and sore from days cuffed together. He gets lift outside with his legs hanging dead beneath him. The rain, that is coming down hard by now, hits the top of his head as he bows his head.

“Get him over here”, Zayn orders them and he grabs the boy by his chin as they get closer. He lifts his head up and twists it around to get a good look. The boy stares back at him furiously, but doesn’t say a word.

“Lovely”, Zayn says at last and meets the boy’s gaze. “These ones are always the most fun to work on. Get him inside and wash him off!”

The police men pull the boy past Zayn and inside the building. Zayn watches them from under his umbrella and then turns around to look out at the dark night sky.

“I think we’ve got something here”, he says to himself and cracks a smile. “I think we’ve really got something.”


	3. a new wake up call

Harry wakes up with a shudder. He feels his heart pounding in his ears along with thick breaths. The sheets beneath his body feel strange and there’s a weird smell sticking in his nose. In front of him there is a big window, allowing the light of an early sun rise to sip in despite the thick, rusty metal bars bolted into the window frame.

Harry looks around the room, studies the dirty white walls up and down with strained eyes and tries to remember how he got here. The aftermath of the nightmare has left him out of breath and shaken and he desperately tries to set his mind straight.

A sudden noise of voices talking causes him to look up to his right. He hears someone laughing and another man continuing to talk, but he can’t make out the words. When the door a few feet from his head suddenly is yanked open and two large men walk inside, wearing white aprons and surgical masks covering their faces, Harry’s immediate reaction is to pull back, but as he does so, his arms are strained back with a clinging sound. He tries to sit up but realizes there is something holding his head down. The panic comes creeping inside him as the two men get closer and in the corner of his eye Harry notices one of them carrying a set of scalpels around his waist and a large bucket.

“What are you doing? Where am I?” Harry splutters. His tongue feels thick and dry in his mouth rough against the back of his teeth. There is panic in his voice that he’s not expecting as the words come out, and his sleepy eyes are suddenly wide in fear.

“It will be easier if you just keep quiet”, one of the men tells him and sets down the bucket on the floor. It clinks empty and the sound seems to bounce back and forth in Harry’s head, as loud as crashing meteors.

Harry stares up at him, his nostrils flaring with each shaky breath coming out of him and he slams his jaw shut to keep it from shaking.

The man on his right picks up one of the scalpels and holds it up in the sunlight.

“What are you doing?” Harry snarls through clenched teeth and the man lowers his gaze to look at him.

“You’re asking too many question”, he says behind his mask and Harry watch as he furrows his bushy eyebrows. The man bends down as he speaks and when he straightens out again his hand land firmly on top of Harry’s mouth.

Harry tries to yank his head away, without results and is instead pushed deeper into the mattress. The man moves his hands down and grabs onto Harry’s chin to squeeze his mouth open.

“Hurry up! He will be here soon and we need to be done by then”, the other man tells him. He sounds older, with a deeper voice and thick accent, and his large and rough hands soon come down to grasp around Harry’s writs to keep him still. “Come on, get the stuff already.”

Harry yanks his body around and squeaks in an attempt to scream. The man with his hand around Harry’s chin finally forces his mouth open and shoves a large, damp cloth in so deep Harry gags and starts tearing up.

“Now just hold still for a while”, the man says and loosens his grip. Harry tries to fight back, but his limbs suddenly heavy and detached from his body and the rooms is spinning before his eyes He feels his mind go blurry and his muscle go numb, until his eyelids fall shut again.

“That should do”, the man sighs and lets his hand fall away from the boy before him. He studies him for a second and then looks up at his partner with a frown.

“Just get on with it”, his older friend tells him sharply, letting go of the boy’s wrist and twists his body slightly so that his back is turned to the bed.

The other man then works quickly, putting on a pair of gloves and placing an iron crown around Harry’s head. There are bolts sticking out from it that he screws on tightly to keep the crown in place. In the front, directly above the Harry’s forehead, there are three holes.

“Drill, please”, the man says and holds out his hand. His companion reaches down to the floor, his back still turned to the bed, and then hands over a large, clunky tool. The man leans in closer to Harry, avoids looking directly at his closed eyelids of the young boy that are shifting in black and yellow, and pushes back a few strands hair that’s clinging to his sweaty forehead.

He tests the drill once, twice, in the air in front of him and them positions it in the middle hole on the crown around Harry’s head. He inhales deeply, narrowing his eyes, and mumbles a few words under his mask.

There isn’t a lot of blood. Just a few drops, splattering into the air as the drill digs deeper into Harry’s skull, before landing softly on his forehead again. Once it’s done – three holes to the head, filled up with three long nail sticking out from the crown – there is a pattern of blood and sweat glistering across Harry’s forehead in the morning sunshine that peeks into the room and over the bed like a beam of warm, comforting tones – direct contrast of what Harry feels when his eyes slowly flutter open again, a few hours later.

*

On the floor above, in a warm room with collage diplomas lining the walls, it would be hard to even imagine the occasion taking place only a flight of stairs away.  

“I have to warn you, Mr. Tomlinson”, Zayn says. He’s sat lean backed in his chair, rocking back and forth slightly with his gaze set on the papers on his desk. On the other side of the table sits a young man – just graduated from college, Zayn would guess – with a pair of prominent glasses framing his narrow eyes and hair hanging into his face, just touching the tips of his eyelashes when he looks up. His fingers are tapping slightly against his legs as he listens carefully.

“The people we’re dealing with here aren’t your normal “I’m-having-trouble-sleeping-at-night”-patients that I would guess you’re used to.”Zayn goes on and lets his gaze fly up and down Mr. Tomlinson again.

“No, sir, I understand that”, the younger man says and nods. “But who doesn’t need a bit of a challenge?” He smiles and raised his eyebrows and although it’s nothing but an attempt to lighten up the mood a bit, Zayn doesn’t look impressed.

Instead he rubs his forehead and coughs into his fist. “You have to understand that we have to follow certain regulations in this place”, he goes on after a while. Mr. Tomlinson twists in his chair a bit and purses his lips together. “These are dangerous people we’re dealing with, sick people. And they get physical sometimes. I mean, they know how to murder people. They don’t know how to get away with it, obviously, but that doesn’t really help you once you’re dead”, Zayn shrugs and raises an eyebrow, leaving a set of fine lines across his forehead. He flicks his gaze up just in time to see the young man bite his lip and swallow hard as he tries to keep his expression unchanged.

“I see, sir”, he says, sounding a little choked up.

“Now, if you’re fine with this, I am more than happy to give you this job, but I need you to understand the risk that you’re putting yourself at, Mr. Tomlinson”, Zayn says and crosses his arms over his chest, one eyebrow arched as he looks back at the other man’s cogitative expression and fiddling hands.

At last, the young man rubs his hands down the front of his pants and leans in towards Zayn, his elbows resting on the edge of the desk. Zayn pulls back a bit, his chin stuck out.

“I understand, sir, I definitely do believe you when you tell me that these people are dangerous, but the thing is – I still believe that they deserve to get the right kind of treatment. And I want to be able to provide that.” He pulls back again once he stops talking.

Zayn narrows his eyes and pouts a bit before leaning across the desk himself, placing a pencil on top of the papers and pushing them towards Mr. Tomlinson. He shrugs and then smiles faintly. “Welcome to the cuckoo’s nest.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was the last chapter with character introductions. Let the fun begin.


End file.
